I don't understand this game :(

[Kitoushi.7549]

Hello, newbie here.

I downloaded the game 2 weeks ago. Don't have many hours played though. When I started, I literally fell in love with the game. So I purchased both expansions. But I feel a little lost now and play less and less. All I have been doing was discovering the whole maps (I find it enjoyable, but have been doing that for too long -.-) And started the main quest line.

There are many many things to do, to discover, to be understood. And I am not a very smart person, so I feel lost. I used my 2 level 80 boosts for ranger and guardian. Guardian, because I played it as main and found a guy who helped me and explained the beginnings (haven't seen him since that day, unfortunately). Ranger because I liked that class in youtube videos and I love playing supportive characters (I heard he is the best supportive char). I do not play ranger at all, his arrow shooting playstyle is uncomfortable for me to play, instead, I focus fully on the guardian, to understand that class. But I am a noob, and despite guardian being an awesome def class, he is squishy when I don't know how to use all his spells properly. Today I joined a map-bandit-boss fight and was totally useless. He had some barriers which I couldn't pass through and all I did was using my passive support abilities...

I know I need to go more deeply into class to understand it fully, but I need to understand the whole game too, so my first question is: Is it better for me to learn the game if I play fully ranger, or guardian? I know I need to focus only one in the beginning. Or is it better to create a new class and go all the way up to level 80? Ranger seems to be easier, he has the helper who fights by his side, so I feel like I don't need to focus fully on what I do, but also on what enemies do while fighting, which I think is important too.EDIT: I would also like to know which attributes I should focus on. I know what they do in papers. But I don't have experience with all of them in game.

Another part of the game I want to understand is crafting. I do look for all possible crafting materials. I farm them pretty hard. But I don't know what to do with it. I know I can craft food or equipment, but I don't know how. How to level the crafting, which crafting class to choose, etc.I use the 80 booster equipment as it seems to be strong, but should I focus on getting better? If so, how to do that? :D

Also, I would like to ask, if there is any good way, you'd recommend for me to choose to learn this game faster? I don't think running and discovering maps will help me that much.

And now generally, I would like to ask all you brave people who managed to go this far and read the whole post... What would you recommend me doing/focusing on? I don't think I play this game right :D and would really appreciate any pieces of advice. I know I am dumb, but I'm trying. I have never ever fallen in love with a game this fast and I don't want to waste the opportunity to enjoy it fully.

PS.: Sorry for my English. It is not my native language.

[Vayne.8563]

I might be able to help. Are you on a US server? If so, message me in game. I enjoy helping new players.

[Tiger Ashante.1792]

@Kitoushi.7549 said:Hello, newbie here.

I downloaded the game 2 weeks ago. Don't have many hours played though. When I started, I literally fell in love with the game. So I purchased both expansions. But I feel a little lost now and play less and less. All I have been doing was discovering the whole maps (I find it enjoyable, but have been doing that for too long -.-) And started the main quest line.

There are many many things to do, to discover, to be understood. And I am not a very smart person, so I feel lost. I used my 2 level 80 boosts for ranger and guardian. Guardian, because I played it as main and found a guy who helped me and explained the beginnings (haven't seen him since that day, unfortunately). Ranger because I liked that class in youtube videos and I love playing supportive characters (I heard he is the best supportive char). I do not play ranger at all, his arrow shooting playstyle is uncomfortable for me to play, instead, I focus fully on the guardian, to understand that class. But I am a noob, and despite guardian being an awesome def class, he is squishy when I don't know how to use all his spells properly. Today I joined a map-bandit-boss fight and was totally useless. He had some barriers which I couldn't pass through and all I did was using my passive support abilities...

I know I need to go more deeply into class to understand it fully, but I need to understand the whole game too, so my first question is: Is it better for me to learn the game if I play fully ranger, or guardian? I know I need to focus only one in the beginning. Or is it better to create a new class and go all the way up to level 80? Ranger seems to be easier, he has the helper who fights by his side, so I feel like I don't need to focus fully on what I do, but also on what enemies do while fighting, which I think is important too.EDIT: I would also like to know which attributes I should focus on. I know what they do in papers. But I don't have experience with all of them in game.

Another part of the game I want to understand is crafting. I do look for all possible crafting materials. I farm them pretty hard. But I don't know what to do with it. I know I can craft food or equipment, but I don't know how. How to level the crafting, which crafting class to choose, etc.I use the 80 booster equipment as it seems to be strong, but should I focus on getting better? If so, how to do that? :D

Also, I would like to ask, if there is any good way, you'd recommend for me to choose to learn this game faster? I don't think running and discovering maps will help me that much.

And now generally, I would like to ask all you brave people who managed to go this far and read the whole post... What would you recommend me doing/focusing on? I don't think I play this game right :D and would really appreciate any pieces of advice. I know I am dumb, but I'm trying. I have never ever fallen in love with a game this fast and I don't want to waste the opportunity to enjoy it fully.

PS.: Sorry for my English. It is not my native language.

It is much better that you lvl up a character from scratch especially for your first time. The introduction of the lvl 80 boost was a good idea from Anet, but not putting any restrictions on it's use was a terrible disservice to it's new playerbase. I hear a story like yours every day and tbh, i'm sick of it. They really need to change the way lvl 80 boost is used.

[Robban.1256]

I as many other recommended to lvl your 1-2 char the standard way to lvl 80, I've seen many treads here and on reddit about new ppl using the lvl 80 boost on their's 1 char and after that they been lost and overwhelmed, some very few even leaved the game cus of that. I would choose class after what I feal most comfortable with. And only start to fix crafting disipline at lvl 80, best guide is gw2crafts.net

Edit. Here some videos: Complete new player guide of Negativenine

New player guide | playing the game and getting to lvl 80 by Gaming with Gs

[Kitoushi.7549]

Thank you very much for your advice. I really appreciate it :) I am gonna go and make a new class,

btw. I am on EU server

[Urud.4925]

Hmm, there's a lot of stuff and doubts in your heartfelt post.First of all, GW2 is an MMO, true, so it's normal that you need some time before understanding how it works (what kind of NPCs there are, if an item is valuable or not, how to progress, how the combo-skills work, etc). BUT, it's a very casual-oriented MMO, so it doesn't punish particularly the people with a slow pace.Second, the gear that you unlocked with your 2 boosts are definitely fine for everything with may need at the moment. So calm, don't feel pressure.

The ranger is definitely easier to play than the guardian, a good profession to start learning the game, although it might be a bit boring later on. But if you like more the guardian, and you already started with it, keep playing the guardian. Both of them can be very good supporter. You can check the relative sections of the forum for specific tips about their skills. But, bandits-boss are not easy to kill, so nothing to be ashamed of. It's normal to have some problem with those nasty mobs.

About the game in general, ranged classes are usually easier to play, because you can move away from the telegraph (that orange area that appears on the ground during some tough fight) faster than a melee (that rely on timing properly their block/dodge skills). But with a melee you'll be rewarded with a higher damage, for taking a higher risk, even with a ranger. I'd suggest to keep playing the class that you like the most, since you should mainly play to have fun, and if you don't, even a relaxed activity like the map completition could be boring and frustrating.

Starting from the beginning might be a good idea, but you can do it also now that you are lv80. So there's no need to start with another character if you like your guardian. But yes, play a bit in the lower-level maps. Gain your hero points (those yellow icons on the map), so you can use them to unlock your 2 specializations. Try to experiment a bit the different weapons that you can wield (they could change completely the combat style), and maybe keep always a ranged weapon as second one, so in case you have problems to tank a tough boss, you can switch to ranged and stay a bit far, while you recover health.

About the crafting, there are specific websites that help you to choose the right materials, to save some money. It's not a content to do at any cost, and it might be a bit expensive at the beginning, but basically you can talk to a crafting master (they are at least in the capital cities and lion's arch, the icons with the leather/armor on the map), near a crafting station and tell them to teach you how to become a crafter of that discipline. You can choose max 2 jobs for each character. At lv500 you can craft an ascended gear, which is a bit better than your exotic gear. But it's not mandatory and absolutely not urgent. You can do dungeons and fractals as well with your current gear.

About what to do... it depends on what you like honestly. I enjoyed the map completition, but if you find it boring, you could try some dungeon with someone for example (story mode is ther easiest one). Give a look to the looking for group window from time to time, you might find someone that looks for some help to complete a dungeon for the first time. My best memory of GW2 was when I did a dungeon with other 2 completely noobs like me. None of us knew what to do. We completed that dungeon after more than 5 hours (including some breaks here and there). Trying to figure out what we had to do, which skill to use on the bosses, where it was better to stay, was awesome. That's what I like about this game: you don't need a good gear to defeat tough enemies. You can try, try, until you understand what to do.Oh, and complete your personal story maybe, if you didn't do it yet. That's also interesting.

Kudos also to you if you arrived to this line. Good luck!

[TamX.1870]

Both ranger and guardian are good support classes, guardian right from the beginning (although you prolly want firebrand spec at level cap), ranger when you unlock druid spec. I mostly play on my ranger. I don't know what is your MMO backgrounds, but one thing that surprised me at the beginning is that there is not that usual "Holy Trinity" (tank, healer, DPS). Instead here we have DPS, and some (most?) classes have builds & specializations which are referred as support, as they either protect you, or boost your team outcome. If we say that guard & ranger is support classes, it mostly refers to certain popular guard & ranger builds which provide heals and other support to group.

Search for crafting guides to level them up. Most probably you need lots of gold for materials. Quite many professions are good, but I could prefer profession who can craft something useful for your toon (e.g. weaponsmith/huntsman to either one, armorsmith to guard, leatherworking to ranger, later maybe artificer). It helps you a bit to motivate level them up as you can benefit the results a bit. But overall I got to say that the whole crafting process is tedious work, you need to go through crafting tiers which will produce nothing useful to you, and in the end you can only make few useful item to you. But I like that I have some freedom of choice, and I like that I can put the mats which I anyways get to some use :)

[Hydroclasm.8572]

Just a quick comment about your encounter with the bandit boss: if it was a Legendary Bandit Executioner, the barrier they put is supposed to keep people out or in. There are a few ways around it I think (with teleports or mounts) but I'm pretty sure it was intended to be impassable, so it's not something you were doing wrong that made you unable to get inside.

[MagicMan.4586]

Before you make a new character and climb lvl 1-80, be reminded that you don't need to do the heart quests (they have nothing to do with your main story at all), and simply understand what you don't know by exploring them or asking people in-game. Slowly but surely understand the stats and your class, then decide what kind of play style you want.

Honestly, I think's it's actually a good thing to feel lost, the more you feel lost, the more experience (and maybe fun) you probably have to go through. During my noob days I leveled mostly from randomly exploring the map and some features I didn't understand, and of course the main personal story quests. My favorite moments of leveling was joining random squads or trains in Central Tyria (before then I didn't know you can join through LFG, so what I did was I simply followed anyone with a commander tag and hoped that he's running a squad doing something) despite that I didn't understand what they were up to, and encountering a random World Boss with a mob of people working together, boi I wish I could relive those first time experiences. If you find a squad or any high level player you're working with in-game, just ask anything you don't understand about the game or what you need to know, for example: "Hey I am new to this game, is there anything I need to know at 'x'?"

[Fluffball.8307]

It sounds to me like you just need a buddy to play with. Maybe try a guild and have them show you sound pvp, wvw, and fractals, for example. You hadn't experienced enough of the game to know what you like.

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

You might not need advice this basic on crafting any more, but it sounds like you don't know where to begin, so--how to get started.

1. Find a crafting area. You will find these in all the major cities, and on all of the racial beginner maps, and a few other places. They have a bunch of odd map icons clustered together: a shield, a pair of crossed weapons, an arrowhead, etc. Each crafting station should have a NPC master crafter nearby who will sell you things you need to do your crafting. The NPC is where the map icon is: the crafting station is nearby. Speak to that NPC to begin learning the craft.

2. You can choose two different crafting disiplines per character. They are:Weaponsmith - Swords, hammers, axes--melee type weaponsHuntsman - Making ranged-type weapons like bows and guns, plus some other ranger-type things like warhornsArtificer - Magical-type weapons: staves, focii, magic potionsArmorsmith - Heavy armor/metalsLeatherworker - Medium armor/leathersTailor - Light armor/clothChef - FoodsJeweler - Trinkets, amulets, rings

3. Start crafting! You will begin by refining materials - jute scraps into jute bolts, copper ore into bronze or copper ingots, etc. There will be automatic recipes for things you can make already, and you can 'discover' others for bigger experience rewards. For example: make a rawhide boot sole, a rawhide boot upper, and Hunter's Insignia. Go to the Discovery panel, throw them all together, and you end up with Hunter's Rawhide Boots, or whatever. Now that recipe is in your recipe list (and you can't 'discover' it again.) You can also combine purely raw materials in the discovery panel to discover new upgrades, potions, etc. Also, you can find some recipes for sale or as drops as you go along your adventures.

Hope that's useful!

[Kitoushi.7549]

Thanks, Cragga, that really is useful :) I want to ask tho when I want to go druid-build ranger, is it better for me to take Huntsman or artificer?

[AliamRationem.5172]

I wish I could join you to play some time. Unfortunately, I'm on NA servers, not EU.

You mentioned the Legendary Bandit Executioner (that bubble boss!). Here's how the bubble works: Shortly after the executioner spawns, he will pull all nearby players in and form the bubble around them. The executioner remains until there are no players left alive inside the bubble, at which point he will simply despawn. Here's a failed attempt I recorded. You can see at the end where the executioner finishes me off there's actually a player outside the bubble, but the executioner doesn't care: As soon as I'm dead and there are no other enemies inside that bubble, the event fails and the executioner despawns.

Note: You can get inside the bubble by teleporting through it. This includes the jackal mount's teleport ability, which is available to any player who owns PoF and has unlocked the ability!

I could tell you a lot more about how this boss works and how to survive it. As with any encounter, understanding the mechanics is critical. And because this game doesn't have tanks and healers, against many bosses (even some legendary spawns like the executioner!) it is entirely possible for a single player that knows the mechanics to survive where large groups of players have failed!

[Taygus.4571]

@Kitoushi.7549 said:Thank you very much for your advice. I really appreciate it :) I am gonna go and make a new class,

btw. I am on EU server

Everyone else answered well, just wanted to post that I'm EU also.., and enjoy the lower level maps, so feel free to msg me in game if you want someone to run map/story with :).My play time varies greatly. but I'd be more than happy to join you and help out with what I can :).

[Cragga the Eighty Third.60]

@Kitoushi.7549 said:Thanks, Cragga, that really is useful :) I want to ask tho when I want to go druid-build ranger, is it better for me to take Huntsman or artificer?

Huntsman/Leatherworker are the typical choices for Rangers, though of course you can do anything you want.

The main thing the artificer can make for a Ranger/Druid is a staff. (And potions, of course! But those seem to have little value, you can buy them on the trading post for less than they cost to make, if you want them. Once you start doing fractals, the artificer can also be useful for making agony infusions.) You should be able to get your Druid an ascended staff without being an artificer, by completing the Yggdrasil collection, which as far as I remember, doesn't require any crafting. The few crafted objects you need can be bought on the Trading Post. Check out the Achievements tab of your Hero panel, look at Collections, under Specialization Collections.

I started crafting late, so for quite a while I never made anything my character could actually use, though some skins were unlocked by crafting. Making Ascended gear was when I found the crafting skills really useful. Later, when I wanted to craft a legendary axe and a staff, I trained alt characters in the crafts that my main did not select, so they could handle the dirty work. (Making legendary weapons involves a huge mount of farming, you probably don't want to start on that any time soon. But if you think you might want to eventually, save your Amalgamated gemstones and mystic coins! You will need them)

[Southghost.9581]

A ranger and a guardian lost in the game wandering around, mine was a sylvari ranger and a charr guardian, lack of time to understand.

Later(long time) I started exploring the wiki and the reddit guild wars 2 sub and other forums now shut.

Nowadays there are less guides but more information.

[Traveller.7496]

I will also chime in that it's the best idea for a new player to level the first character the traditional way to 80. That way you will learn the game more instead of being really overwhelmed after using the level 80 boost.

If you want to ask something I'm on Gandara EU so feel free to drop a whisper if I'm online.

[Biff.5312]

Sounds like you ran into the bandit executioner - you can't move across that bubble barrier. This is just a matter of learning the opponents you run into, which you can only do by trial and error.My advise - start a lvl 1 toon and level properly, adding skills one by one. That way you learn to use them and practice one at a time until you have them all.